Daily Archives: July 11, 2013

The Unstoppable Fashion Trend

One morning when my daughter was two years-old, I asked her what she thought of the shirt I was wearing. She said it was fine. But when I pushed her for more feedback, she said: “It too big and it no match.” That was an easy fashion trend to undo. But there’s no stopping the trend of wearable computing. Experts expect us to purchase about 15 million wearable computing devices this year, and we’re just warming up. And humans may not be the only ones who become wearable tech fashion victims. Some inventors are already designing wearable devices for dogs.

Quartz: What I learned from researching almost every single smart watch that has been rumored or announced.

+ I already have a smart watch. It tells me when it’s time to put down my phone. Maybe we should all do that a little more…

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It’s two steps forward and one step back, and today we live at a time of a giant step backwards in our political and economic lives. The only saving grace is that the GOP sponsored step backwards will end and then we can look forward to forward progress again. Progress may slow and painful or if we persevere, it may be rapid and significant. It all depends upon us and our not giving up hope for our nation’s future.

Like this:

PATCHOGUE, N.Y. — At first glance, the green plastic ginger ale bottle on the beach looked just like another of the billions of pieces of debris splayed across Northeast coastlines after Superstorm Sandy.

But this bottle, which would fetch a nickel at the recycling center, is worth everything to a grieving mother who knew instantly from the silly adolescent message inside that it had come from her daughter, who died in 2010: “Be excellent to yourself, dude!”

Sidonie Fery, then 10, wrote a message on a scrap of paper, tucked it in a bottle and launched it into the waters off Long Island a dozen years ago. It was long forgotten until workers cleaning up after Sandy in the village of Patchogue discovered it and called Sidonie’s mom, Mimi.

“I was just sobbing when I heard they had found it,” Mimi Fery said. “These are very, very kind people.”

House Republicans reportedly plan to remove food stamp funding from the federal farm bill, a move that stands to further jeopardize the survival of the critical anti-poverty program. This move comes after years of right-wing media figures demonizing food stamp recipients as lazy or dependent, with Rush Limbaugh going so far as to propose dumpster diving as an alternative.

Here’s a look back at some of the most egregious right-wing attacks on food stamps

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A new high-tech urinal is supposed to help men take better care of their personal hygiene and the environment.

Latvian designer Kaspars Jursons has created “The Stand,” which is basically a sink on top of a urinal. The water that comes out of a hands-free, infrared, sensor faucet is reused to flush the urinal so that men can use the facilities and wash their hands at the same time, while also saving water in the process.

Jursons told NPR the piece, which costs about $590, has already been installed at a concert venue in Riga, Latvia, and may start cropping up in Norway, Germany, Russia, Poland.

Turns out men all over the world need help with hand-washing. In the U.S., a recent study conducted by Michigan State University found that 95% of Americans do not wash their hands properly.

Other high-tech urinals that have gone viral in the past year include the